I wanted to share one of my Christmas gifts from my Husband. He got me £100 voucher for Merchant and Mills. Which I duly spent 4 days later. I got myself the Jack Tar bag kit, with navy dry oilskin for the outside and a grey for the inside. Can’t wait to be feeling much better and get this made…

I also got a clapper, which I’ve been wanting for a while. And I still have just over £11 left.

The grosgrain strap I already had, and think I will use this instead of making the fabric handles out of the same fabric as the bag. I think it will go well.

I’ve not been very well since Christmas, nothing serious just this cold/flu virus thing thats going around, but it has made me feel pretty grotty for long enough now, and I’m fed up with it! Its left me with a cough that just won’t go and I get pretty exhausted quite quickly. I had to make the decision a couple of a weeks ago as to whether I was going to sew or start exercising again. I decided I had to get back into my exercising regime, got to watch that waist line! However I started re watching the last series of the Great British Sewing Bee (wish they’d do another) and really wanted to do some sewing. I have a work in progress, another Cocowawa Marshmallow dress, but feel its a bit too fiddly and needs too much concentration for the way I’m feeling at present. So I decided that this gorgeous quilted jersey fabric would make a superb long sleeve Trapeze top.

what I love about making the Trapeze in a jersey is that you only need 3 pattern pieces, and its so simple to put together. I almost completed it in one day…

I added 6cm again to the bottom of the pattern and turned up the hem by about 2cm. Very happy with length.

This is not a very good picture of the back!

This quilted fabric just makes every garment look that little bit more professional I feel.

Please excuse the bed hair!!

I love this fabric in the grey, its a bit different to the navy and black fabric, as its really soft to touch and so snuggly to wear. However I do feel it will pill like a bugger!! So there we have it, satisfied my urge to sew and I now have a gorgeous new top.

Okay then, second cocowawa Marshmallow dress completed already. Made this one in a size 10 instead of the 12 and whilst still a little roomy (but I think its meant to be) it is perfect. I’m so pleased I’ve found this pattern, no more Trapeze makes for a while I fear!

So without further ado here come the many pictures…

I think the fabric really helps in making this an interesting dress too. More of the Ponte roma quilted jersey.

So there we have it, my new favourite dress pattern. Expect to see many many more of these!

I flipping love this dress. I’ve been looking for a pattern for this type of dress for the longest time. I even considered making my own version with a pattern hack of my trusty Trapeze dress pattern, after reading the blog by nobleanddaughter.com, but I couldn’t quite get my head round the idea. And then luckily this pattern popped into my radar. I believe I had seen it a while ago before, but think it was probably only in a PDF version, and so I bypassed it. Now though its available in a printed paper version too.

I’ve always loved this style of dress, and when I saw the this one by Victoria Beckham I so badly wanted one or to be able to make one like it, so the pairing of this pattern with the fabric was like a dream come true.

Okay so mine isn’t exactly the same but I think its a pretty good example of this style of dress. And dare I say I prefer mine. Not least because it only cost me about £20 instead of several hundreds of pounds!

I made it in a ponte roma quilted jersey from Fabricgodmother and at £8 a metre and 150cm wide its quite a bargain. Plus in this fabric I actually feel like I’m wearing a marshmallow!

I’ve done my usual and simplified my version. I’ve taken out the button down back, and because its in jersey I haven’t done a facing. Nor have I used any of the add ons like the collar or the bow. I also shortened the sleeves more than the recommended amount, the original short sleeve length was elbow length.

I find measurements on sewing patterns to be quite confusing sometimes and if I’d followed the guide on this pattern I’d have made a size 14 which would have been way too big. I plumped for making a 12 and its still a bit too big. The next one will be made in a size 10.

I managed to make it using about 1.75m of fabric.

There will now follow lots of pictures…

I just love the silhouette of this dress, its just so damn cute I can’t stand it!

I had a party to go to recently, and I bought a dress! And I rather enjoyed the process of buying the dress. I’d forgotten that it could be quite nice to buy something to wear for a special occasion. And the dress I bought I would not have been able to make myself, so it is justified.

I will also be wearing it boxing day, for a special lunch for my Mum and Dads 60th wedding anniversary.

I made/altered back in September. I haven’t been very productive lately, and haven’t made anything yet this October. I think it s nearly a month since I sat down at my sewing machine. I’m blaming work and being too tired! Although I’m also quite content with my wardrobe full of self made tops and dresses. Plus its getting tricky to fit anything else in. And thats after having a good clear out.

Anyway back to what I did manage to do in September.

I made another trapeze top, but this time I added 6cm to my original top pattern. And I think its a pretty good length. This is my 3rd garment in this fabric.

And I loved this version so much that I cut down a dress I’d made in this fabric too. So from this

To this

It was fairly straight forward to do, and I’ve worn it so many more times as a top than I did when it was a dress. I still have the longer one I made, and I’ll be keeping that one as a dress. I know the tops look the same but trust me they are two different tops.

Then I shortened some jeans, it always makes me happy when I do an alteration! I think shortened I them by about 3inches but it might be a bit more. They’re not the jeans worn in the above picture, but these were a similar length, but I didn’t like them longer as they weren’t as tight as the others and I didn’t think they looked quite as good. Now I’m happy with them.

I also shortened sleeves on about six shirts for my Dad. Nothing fancy. I don’t have pics of those.

So thats about it for now. I do have a couple more Imogens I want to make before the years out, so I’m hoping to get my sewjo back soon…

I saw this gorgeous fabric on Minervacrafts.com and had to have it! When it arrived though I was a bit surprised at how stiff and rough it felt. Still I wasn’t put off and I put it in the wash. It felt a little better afterwards.

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to make it into a Trapeze top/tunic or an Imogen, so I pondered on it for a few days and one day after coming back from my power walk I’d made up my mind to cut it out in preparation for an Imogen. I bought 3m and boy am I glad I did. I needed pretty much most of it for the pattern, as the fabric wasn’t very wide. I had hoped I’d have enough to make something else, but no.

I had a bit of a love hate working with this fabric, at first it felt stable to work with but then at times I felt like it wanted to stretch. It was horrible to iron, I had to really press hard and do it repeatedly to get any semblance of crispness.

I do love the finished garment though…

I tried it on before I’d finished it properly and for some reason rolled the sleeves up and was delighted with the look, so I made the decision to not put the elastic in leave the sleeves as roll ups. Don’t think thats the technical term!

The placket and the collar were the trickiest bits to work with. I still don’t fully understand what I’m doing and it always ends up working by accident or luck, but its never perfect. I’m a bit worried about the fabric at the bottom right side of the placket, I think there’s the potential for a hole!

And as for the top stitching at the base of the collar, well that went to pot. Its perfectly wearable though and I shall still wear it with pride.

I’ve had this fabric for a couple of years now, when I bought it I made the mistake of thinking it was horizontal stripes (its a mistake I often make for some reason), so it threw me when I realised it was vertical stripes. So it languished in my stash box for the last 2 years. And on top of the stripe mistake I also went off this type of fabric (I think its a cotton poplin) and started making with knit fabrics more often than not.

Since I discovered the Trapeze dress pattern works well as a maxi length dress, I looked at this fabric again. Pondered on it for a week or two and decided to go for it. I bought 3 metres which is just as well as its only 107cm wide and the trapeze uses a lot of fabric at the bottom, and even more in the maxi version! I was just able to squeeze it out of the fabric, but it was really really tight!

I decided to not to do a facing which I usually leave off doing when using knit fabrics, haven’t done it with a woven fabric before though. I made sure I had enough fabric left if I ended up needing to do a facing. I only left it off as I was feeling lazy!

So without further ado here she is. Husband says its quite striking…

I like the way it looks like the stripes go in different directions due to the way it drapes.

Stripes almost match at the sides.

I have to look twice when trying it on as the centre back seam blends in so well I can barely see it. I managed to put it on Gertie (my mannequin) the wrong way round once and wondered why it didn’t look right!

Works well with Converse and one of my bags

And also with sandals.

Side view looks better in the flesh.

Another successful Trapeze and happy to have finally used this fabric.